


Changeling

by LynyrdLionheart



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: AU Week, F/M, Faeries - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 08:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20945264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynyrdLionheart/pseuds/LynyrdLionheart
Summary: Caroline Forbes was born not quite human, and she was okay with that.  Then Klaus showed up on her college campus with answers she'd always refused to look for herself.





	Changeling

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution for day one of Klaroline AU Week over on Tumblr. It's Mythical Creatures, so I made them Fae.

She was running about five minutes late for class, and it was irritating. Not because she worried it might affect her mark; this professor didn’t care about attendance, but even if he had, Caroline had learned how to use her particular brand of charm to get around things like attendance grades.

She just didn’t like to run late.

Sort of like how she didn’t like clutter. Or poorly planned events. Or anything that required her having to work with other people as equals.

She had an ex boyfriend who had once called her a neurotic control freak. Caroline preferred natural leader, but Tyler hadn’t been entirely wrong. She just liked to make sure things were done _right_. And that everything was in its proper place.

And today, she was late. It made her grate her teeth as she slid into the lecture hall. She took a seat in the back, a row she never liked. She was always in the center, where the view was the best, but she didn’t come across a teacher’s pet. No one, including teachers, liked the teacher’s pet.

But the back? That was reserved for the slackers or the late ones. Sitting there made her skin itch, and she gritted her teeth. Caroline had never liked interruptions to her routine, and this interruption was going to throw her whole day off. She found herself scowling at the front of the class and not hearing anything the professor said. Everything felt wrong, and it had since her alarm had failed to go off that morning, forcing her to cut her morning routine short.

And someone was watching her.

She ran her tongue along the inside of her mouth, over her teeth. It slipped over a sharpened canine, the sharp tang of bloody metal hitting her tongue, while her fingernails – painted a metallic pink that didn’t detract at all from their abnormal sharpness – tapped out a staccato on the desk next to her laptop. Her gaze darted to each side, but the others in the class were all focused ahead on what the professor was saying, or not focused on anything at all. 

None of them paid attention to Caroline, except for the girl in the seat right next to her, who glared when Caroline’s unrest disturbed her from staring blankly at the YouTube video she was watching. Caroline gave a sugary sweet smile in return, one that showed just a few too many teeth… and how abnormally sharp they were.

The girl paled and turned by to her screen. Caroline continued to shift, even as she tried to pay attention to the professor. 

The feeling of being watched persisted throughout the whole class, and when it ended, she was on her feet, whip fast, looking at the back wall of the class, certain she would come face to face with her observer. 

There was no one there. No matter how long Caroline continued to stare, ignoring classmates as they moved around her, heading for the door, no one looked back at her.

Yet the back of her neck continued to itch.

\---

Caroline could not recall a time when she wasn’t aware she was different. Her teeth just a bit too sharp, her nails dark and even sharper. The only one that hadn’t been at least a little afraid of her had been Bonnie Bennet. That had made her Caroline’s best friend, even though others assumed it was the town sweetheart, Elena Gilbert. 

No, Elena had been too nervous around Caroline. Always wary of those sharp nails. But Bonnie had shoved Caroline down for not sharing her ball on their first day at pre-school, not caring that all the other children kept a wary distance, and that had earned Bonnie her eternal loyalty. 

She had become ever increasingly aware of the fact that she was different and her parents didn’t like it as she grew older. As Bill Forbes began to spend less time at home, until he disappeared entirely, and Liz put in longer hours at the station, and when she did come home, it was reeking of cheap whiskey. Maybe Caroline should have felt guilt over it, but she’d never been inclined towards self-loathing. Instead, she had simply felt distaste. 

Bonnie Bennet could accept that Caroline was a little… weird. But the people meant to parent her couldn’t. Caroline decided at the age of fourteen – when she found out her dad wanted to marry another man and had e-mailed Liz the divorce papers instead of calling either of them – that their weakness was on them, not her.

She was meant to be spectacular. She wouldn’t force herself into some narrow hole just because they didn’t like that her teeth and nails and entire character were too sharp for Mystic Falls.

(If part of her, the part that was a lost girl, cried over this… well, no one but Caroline and her pillow needed to know. The world had no right to know her heart’s secrets)

She had survived Mystic Falls. She had graduated. She had left her father with his new family, and her mother in the bottom of a bottle. She had hugged Bonnie.

And then she had left.

She had a whole, huge world to explore after all.

And it all started with college, and a journalism degree. Because journalists got to see things and people in a way no one else did. It was their job to truly understand, and Caroline wanted to understand _everything_.

But now she had an itch on the back of her neck, and a feeling in the pit of her stomach that said a storm was coming. Caroline’s instincts had always been right.

And now they were screaming that something – _someone_ – wanted to ruin her dreams, and that couldn’t be allowed.

Yet for all her instincts and careful attention to the world around her, a week passed after that first class, the one where she was late, without Caroline identifying who it was that was stalking her. She knew they were there, but couldn’t see them.

It might drive her mad.

It might drive her into a bottle, just like Liz. 

That one was particularly annoying. Caroline had never wanted to be her mother, not even before she had realized how much the woman feared and disliked her own daughter.

“You seem out of it.”

April’s voice interrupted Caroline’s rattled thoughts, and she almost snarled at the other woman. But April didn’t deserve that. She was a bit boring, and probably didn’t deserve much thought at all… but she definitely didn’t deserve one of Caroline’s snarls. Not when she put on a brave face and pretended not to notice the fangs or the nails, even if she was terrible at pretending anything. 

At least she had invited Caroline to the study group for their shared English course. It had taken several sessions before the other members of the group became as adept at hiding their fear of Caroline’s abnormalities as even April was. 

But since her studies were important, Caroline kept her smiles that bared her teeth to a minimum, and made sure she painted her nails in bright, cheerful colors, to ease the way. Now they hardly ever shivered in fear, unless Caroline wanted them to.

Her paranoia made her want to make them shiver. Those that feared her wouldn’t dare to mess with her. 

“I’m not in the mood for studying,” Caroline said shortly, pushing herself back from the table they had claimed in the library. Her chair screeched across the floor loudly, and for a single second, paranoia was forgotten when Matt Donovan winced and hunched his shoulders, and Caroline allowed herself a pleased grin that showed off her fangs.

Matt whimpered, and Caroline chuckled, even as her neck itched again and she stalked away, swinging her bag over her shoulder. 

As she headed for the exit, a shadow detached itself from the shadows of a nearby book shelf. She continued to walk, but breathing was suddenly easier. 

She hadn’t just been paranoid.

The shadow followed her, as she weaved across campus. Other students moved out of her way, instinctually sensing that she was not one with whom they should mess. She travelled quickly between two buildings, taking shortcuts that only a well-established student would know. The shadow followed the whole time.

It was finally in the agricultural sciences building that she led it into an empty room. She had taken a communications course in that room, and had learned that it was always empty on Tuesdays and Thursdays from one until three. She had often used it to study. The agricultural science building tended to be relatively quiet. Theirs wasn’t an agriculture school, so the students and faculty that frequented the building were relatively low in company. 

“What do you want?” she asked, moving to the front of the classroom, so that the professor’s desk was between her and the shadow, and one of the exits was to her left. 

“I am here to take you home.”

The shadow was a man. Dressed entirely in black, which made Caroline want to roll her eyes. Apparently her stalker was a drama queen, when he wasn’t getting her paranoia ramped up to extreme levels. 

“I don’t need someone to take me home. I know where my home is. I even have the keys.” She considered tugging them out of the pocket of her jacket, but then decided against it. This mean, this shadow, there was something off about him. 

Caroline recognized it, because it was the same off people sensed about her. 

He eyed her curiously, and cocked his head to the side. After a moment, a slow smile curved his lips, cutting dimples into his cheeks.

He had fangs.

They weren’t like hers – dainty points on her canines. No, these were larger, twinned fangs that turned that smile, that should have been charming, into something monstrous. 

His eyes glowed amber. They hadn’t been before. Just a second ago, they had been blue; but now they were amber surrounded by black. Caroline should likely be terrified, but she had never meant someone else that was so clearly other.

Despite her better judgment, she found herself curious. 

“Who are you?”

The man stepped towards her, and it took all of Caroline’s considerable stubborn nature not to take a step back. Even before the fangs and the eyes, something about the man had screamed _predator_. Now that she could see it as well, all of her instincts screamed at her to run.

But those were the instincts that had been created before her parents had begun to loathe her. The one formed on hunting trips with Bill. Those were the instincts of a human.

The Other in Caroline was fascinated. She want to run a claw down the man’s neck, and see what color his blood was. 

Caroline’s was red, but not the usual red. It was a red so dark it almost appeared black. She still remembered the way here parents had turned so pale, when they had seen that blood. More than her fangs or her claws, it had been that blood that had made them hate her. 

She wanted to know if the man’s blood was almost black as well.

He stopped on the other side of the desk, just inches away from it, so the wooden surface was all that separated them. He still watched her, and Caroline tensed. Her fascination wouldn’t get her killed. If he made a move, she would go for the door. If he tried to get in her way, there were chairs she could use as weapons. 

Instead of attacking, he suddenly gave a flourished bow, as though he had stepped out of one of the stupid fairy tales Caroline had once sighed over, before she’d realized the Other was always the villain and always lost.

She had lost her taste for princesses and castles and happily ever afters after that.

“They call me Klaus,” he said, glancing up at her with that wicked grin and those inhuman eyes. 

“Okay,” Caroline replied slowly, contemplating him with narrowed eyes. “And who are _they_?”

“The Fae, of course. My people. And yours.”

\---

When Klaus had come to the Realm of Humans to find the Lady Caroline – the _real_ Lady Caroline, not the fool of a child that had been brought to replace her – he had imagined it would go rather simply. The humans were weak, simplistic creatures. What Fae would toss aside the promise of Faerie to stay amongst those that would shun them?

No one.

So he would find her, swoop her back to their home, and the plans he had been putting into play would allow him to claim the power of the Fire Fae, just as he had already claimed that of the Shadow Fae. 

And all seemed to be going perfectly.

“The Fae, of course. My people. And yours.”

And here was where she would fall into his arms, believing him the savior, and he would gain all he wanted.

And then she laughed.

Right in his face.

Not a little chuckle, or the delicate titter of the ladies of the Courts. No, this was a belly laugh, one that made Caroline bend in half, tears leaking out of the corner of her eyes. She stumbled back two steps, until she could let the wall at her back take on her weight as she continued to laugh. 

“You… my… oh my God.”

Klaus failed to see what she found so humorous. 

“Surely,” he said, his voice taking on a cold undercurrent, one that made everyone within Faerie shiver and fear his wrath, “you didn’t believe you belonged _here_. You, who are so clearly inhuman? I had thought you an intelligent woman after observing you this past week. Perhaps I was mistaken.”

Caroline was still chuckling, even hiccupping a little, but her laughter had calmed somewhat as she wiped tears from her eyes, careful not to smear the kohl that she had lined them with. She wore it daily, that dark kohl; in their Realm, such things were usually only worn for special occasions. 

“I mean, no. It’s pretty clear I’m not exactly normal by the standards of this place,” Caroline stated once she’d wiped the tears away. “But why the hell would I go anywhere with you? Much less to a place that didn’t want me.”

“Didn’t want you?” Klaus asked, puzzled by this new roadblock in his way. 

“I mean, obviously. Liz and Bill believed I was theirs. You’re telling me I’m a Fae. I can put two and two together pretty easily, Klaus.”

She sauntered out the door to the room, and Klaus had to follow her, feeling as though his world had tilted. This wasn’t at all how this was supposed to go. He had thought there might be some confusion, that would quickly give way to relief, when she realized she would get to leave this wretched place. But instead of being adrift, Caroline seemed entirely too comfortable in this place, even with the knowledge that it wasn’t hers. 

“And what is it that you’ve put together?”

“I’m a Changeling. A Faerie child left in place of a human one. What happened? Did my counterpart die, and now my birth parents want a replacement?” Her smile was nearly as sharp as Klaus’ own, her fangs bared in a way that made him feel near instant lust.

There was nothing so attractive as a woman that knew how to use her fangs. 

“Your parents were unable to conceive again after you,” Klaus said after a moment, still trailing after her. She paused, her eyes glancing over a board that had papers attached to it, but he had the distinct feeling that she wasn’t really seeing what they said. “Some say it was because the Gods turned their backs on them, for discarding their heir so easily.”

“A bunch of superstitious religious quacks,” Caroline murmured darkly. “Because _that’s_ totally what I’m into.”

“I doubt the Gods would bother themselves with such things,” Klaus continued, ignoring her mutters. “More likely they were just unlikely. But the human child, even if humans were allowed to inherit, is foolish and selfish. She can’t rule her own emotions, much less a kingdom.”

“Well,” Caroline tapped a finger on a paper, her expression contemplative. Finally, she shrugged and turned to him with a bright smile. “Sucks to be them.”

Then she turned and all but bounced out the exit of the building. Klaus remained in her wake, wondering if this was what it meant, to feel flabbergasted. It felt as thought someone had planted a fist in his stomach. 

He rather didn’t like it.

He stood there for what must have only been a handful of seconds before charging after her, determined to explain to her that this was her chance to return home. To be welcomed into the loving arms of her family. 

(To win him a kingdom)

Outside, there were several students walking along the sidewalks, but none of them was blonde, dressed in a cheerful dress. 

He had lost her, and it made him snarl. 

Then it made him smile.

It had been… far too long, before he actually had to work to get what he wanted. Perhaps it would be a novelty.

\---

She considered ditching Klaus in the Agricultural Science building to be a win. Of course, she hadn’t expected it to last long, so when that persistent itch at the back of her neck began again in her Rhetorical Criticism course, she wasn’t really surprised. 

What did surprise her was when Klaus slid into the seat next to her, lounging and looking around the room with distaste, as though he were some sort of prince.

Perhaps he was. Apparently that was a thing among the Faeries.

“If you’re going to take up journalism, we should likely discuss internship options,” she murmured as she added a notation to her online notes. “I’d rather you not try to compete with me for any. Losing might destroy your ego.”

“You underestimate the size of my ego, Love,” Klaus murmured in reply. He glanced at her laptop screen, and sneered. “The people of this realm are far too reliant on their technology.”

“Parents that abandoned me and no wifi… wow, you’re doing such a good job of making me think I really want to be a Fae.”

“You’re a Fae whether you live in Faerie or not. There you would simply be amongst your own kind.”

Did he know? She had to wonder for a moment. Did he know about those nights, when she had cried into her pillow. Before she had decided her fangs and sharp nails would become her armour. Back when her parents’ distaste and her classmates’ fear made her desperate for just one person who understood her. 

She had given up that dream so long ago, yet his words still managed to make something in her chest pang. And it made her grit her teeth and flash a fang at him.

“I prefer being one of a kind,” she said, expression sweet and completely fake. “But please tell mommy and daddy that their little girl is doing well.”

Klaus chuckled low, the sound making her shiver, just a bit. Caroline had messed around with a few boys, in high school and in college. The brave ones, who would dare her inhumanities because she was otherwise beautiful. But none of them had made her shiver, or feel any real desire. They had reeked of fear, and while the hunt could be fun, it tended to ruin bedroom games.

But that chuckle made her shiver, and so did the finger he ran up her arm. He didn’t have claws, and with his lips closed and his eyes blue again, he could almost pass for human.

Except there was no fear. There was only lust and the wild glint of a challenge accepted. 

“I’m not a messenger, Caroline. I’m afraid if you wish your parents to receive that message, you’ll have to pass it on yourself.”

Caroline paused in her typing, as though contemplating the thought. Next to her, she felt Klaus’ gaze on her. Disappointing him, she decided, was going to become a delight for her. She gave him another bright grin and shrugged.

“Then I guess they’ll never know.”

He let out another low chuckle as Caroline turned back to her laptop, fingers flying across the keys. He leaned in close, and Caroline’s fingers stopped, and her breath caught in the back of her throat. He was far too close.

He wasn’t nearly close enough.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, gaze catching with his, and those dimples made another appearance. A monster shouldn’t look so cute, yet somehow Klaus did. 

Monstrously cute.

“You’re a challenge, Caroline,” he murmured, her name rolling off his tongue. She wondered if everyone in Faerie had an accent like his. Would she have, if she hadn’t been abandoned in favor of that bright, but useless, human? “I like a challenge.”

It sounded like a warning. 

But Caroline had always liked a challenge, too.

\---

She was clever, his little Fire Princess. Clever and wicked and not at all afraid of him. That was a unique experience for Klaus. The King of Shadows was feared across Faerie. Caroline’s own parents were terrified of him. The little human that she had been exchanged for? She couldn’t even speak to Klaus, much less meet his eyes.

Yet Caroline grinned at him to show of sharp fang and refused to even hear him out. Since he had started to claim whatever seat was next to her in her classes, she had even begun to type him sweet nothings on the screen on which she took notes.

_If I told you to go to hell, how long would it take you to get there?_

“I was under the impression I was already there,” Klaus muttered, because while Caroline might be charming, the rest of these humans weren’t. One had tried to touch him, with what he supposed she had believed was a seductive smile. She had been blond haired and blue eyed like Caroline… like the human that had replaced her.

The scent of her fear had been thick when she had fled, when he had bared his fangs, let his eyes go amber. 

“God, you are _such_ a drama queen,” Caroline muttered in reply, erasing her comment and replacing it with whatever nonsense the man at the front of the room was lecturing about. They all spoke too much, these people at the front of the room. It irritated Klaus. 

“I’m a drama _king_, if you must use a title,” Klaus replied, giving the slightest of sneers, which made Caroline’s lips quirk rather than making her fear. 

He was… okay with that. If she had been anyone else, he would have torn out their liver to make them see that he was a thing to be feared, not mocked. Only Caroline was allowed such freedom. It made her unique, even amongst the Fae. 

“Really?” she had done such a good job of keeping any curiosity about Faerie under wraps that the glint of interest in her eye actually caught him by surprise. “That’s the closest thing to something personal you’ve told me.”

It was, Klaus realized with some surprise. He didn’t tend to tell others anything about himself, if he could get away with it. His siblings knew far too much, and liked to use it against him whenever they could, and at least they shared ties of blood with him. Sharing with outsiders was dangerous.

And it also might be the way to getting to Caroline. He could keep it surface level. Make her believe he was baring his soul, when really he was simply telling her what would be common fact about him. 

“I got the throne by killing the man I had believed to be my father. Everyone believed it because I am hungry for power; truly, I just didn’t want to fear him anymore.”

Caroline blinked at him, her lips pursed in surprise.

Klaus blinked back.

Well… that wasn’t at all what he had meant to say.

\---

“Okay, so your mother had an affair with, like, a werewolf?”

Caroline was perched on a bench next to Klaus, actually finding herself fascinated by the whole thing. It was way more interesting when she was learning all the gossip about other people’s dramas. Then it was just learning about Faerie, instead of hearing about the people that had decided she wouldn’t be nearly as fun as a random human kid.

“A Moon Fae,” Klaus corrected. 

“Yeah, but they can shape shift into wolves. So werewolf.”

Klaus rolled his eyes, but his lips kicked up, just a bit, at the edges, and Caroline grinned back widely. She knew it left her fangs bared, and Klaus’ eyes darkened at the sight. He reached out, and it should have been weird, to have someone stroke her tooth like that. But it wasn’t. 

Instead, it made her breath catch. 

“What kind of Fae am I?” she found herself asking.

_Shit_. She didn’t want to ask that. She didn’t want to know. It didn’t _matter_.

“A Fire Fae,” he said before she could take her words back. “A creature of heat and flame, who thrives in the sun and has an… _admirable_ temper.”

Caroline didn’t say anything. Instead, she looked past his shoulder, trying not to listen. Not to think about parents that had left her with humans that had… stopped caring. Because Caroline wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted a human. Just like her parents had wanted a human. 

“Why do you even care?” she finally asked, looking at Klaus, who seemed to be the only one that actually wanted _her_, and even then, it wasn’t actually her. It was the throne that should apparently be hers. “If I’m here or there. You said you’re a king, so my parents couldn’t have hired you.”

Klaus considered her thoughtfully, twirling a twig he had picked up at some point between his fingers. 

“I had intended to use you,” he said at last. “To gain access to the powers of the Fire Fae. I would take you home, and you would be so thankful you would give me access to the sanctum of your kingdom, and I would take it for my own.”

“What? World domination?” she asked, giving a bitter chuckle. “I guess I ruined all those plans.”

“You did,” Klaus agreed, still twirling the twig. “Although I find myself surprisingly blasé about it. You should know I’m rarely blasé about anything. My siblings wouldn’t recognize me.”

“You mean the crazy, murderous siblings you mentioned?” Caroline tugged her knees up to her chest, rested her chin on them. “So, my parents don’t really care that you’re here?”

“They need you,” Klaus replied after a beat. “They’d send someone.”

_Eventually_ went unsaid, because they hadn’t, not yet. Or maybe they had, and that someone wasn’t as good at finding her as Klaus. 

“You should go home,” Caroline said at last, dropping her legs and getting to her feet. “Return to your kingdom. I can’t give you that power, because I don’t want to go there.” _They don’t want me? Well I don’t want them_. “I’m happy here.”

A lie, bitter on her tongue. At least those old stories weren’t true, the ones that said Fae had to be honest. Caroline’s life would suck if that were the case. She made it through far too many days by lying to herself.

“No,” Klaus said. “You’re not.”

Caroline shrugged uneasily, and began to walk away. Then, her hand was in his, and he was twirling her around, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her into his chest. Her hands rested against it – warm and solid beneath her hands – and she stared up at him in surprise. 

“Marry me.”

\---

_“Marry me.”_

Saying things he hadn’t intended to seemed to be becoming a habit around the Lady Caroline. But though it had been a sudden demand, Klaus realized he didn’t regret it.

Some events were meant to be. Fae were raised on fate and destiny, and Klaus was no different. And he fully believed he and Caroline were destiny. It would gain him the power of the Fire Fae, but more importantly?

It would gain him that clever, clever mind as his partner.

“You’re insane,” Caroline said after a beat of silence. “We don’t know each other. I don’t even want to go to Faerie.”

“No,” Klaus corrected, “you don’t want to go to being that don’t want you. That’s not what you would be doing. I want you. And I want to tear power from your parents’ hands, and take it for our own. Don’t you want the same?”

“No,” Caroline denied immediately, but he knew it was a lie. She knew it was a lie, too, and her gaze didn’t meet his.

“Really?” Klaus purred, leaning down towards her. She looked up at him, and he brushed his lips over her own. Once, twice, thrice. And then he kept a careful distance between them.

Her move.

“No,” she said again, and he wasn’t sure if it was an answer, or a repeat of her previous denial. But she followed his lips, claiming them for her own.

Claiming _him_ for her own. 

“No?” he asked when they finally broke apart. She pulled him in for another kiss, fierce and hungry and commanding.

Only by Caroline, would Klaus allow himself to be commanded. 

“Yes,” she said this time, when they broke apart. And at first, Klaus dazed and confused, and didn’t quite understand. But then he met her gaze, which was fierce and direct.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” she said again, with a sharp nod, and yes, he knew they were fated. Because he could hear the rest of her words.

_Yes, I will marry you._

_ Yes, I will take power away from my parents_.

He kissed her again, already plotting the wedding they would have, once they destroyed the entirety of the Fire Court.


End file.
